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The office of the future may not be about trappings or technology
as much as the exchange of ideas, with a focus on employee
engagement--what some experts are calling the "new
sustainability."

You can thank the open office
movement for starting that conversation, turning concepts such as
collaboration and transparency into convention. But the new
buzzwords on every workplace designer's tongue are incubation,
cross-pollination, symbiosis and co-working--concepts that are
causing even more walls to come down and hierarchies to flatten
further. In today's parlance, the corner office is no longer seen
as a prize.

"It's certainly not as critical as it once was," says Bruce
Fisher, an architect in the New York firm Kohn Pedersen Fox
Associates. "What's becoming more important is the breadth of the
floor, and as much visual continuity as possible so you can see
someone all the way across the floor. It's not about Big Brother,
but more about staying involved and knowing what's going on."

The open plan isn't a new concept: Frank Lloyd Wright used the
scheme in the Johnson Wax headquarters building in Racine, Wis.,
to group employees of similar functions (in this case,
secretaries). But over the decades, as corporate workers
increasingly performed isolating tasks, they were insulated in
offices and cubicles, working their way up to bigger and better
spaces that signaled their rising status within the firm.

In today's young, technology-driven workplace, however, "all
that's been turned on its head," says Brad Lynch, principal of
Chicago's Brininstool + Lynch. "In my
mind, it's led by a generation that starts out not knowing
what an office environment is supposed to be as a real-estate
model." Today's young workers, he explains, consider the
office more in terms of "what it needs to do for them."

What works, industry experts say, is a space that fosters
transparency, offers multiple choices as to how and where to work
and an environment that imitates life outside the office.

And, of little surprise, technology companies set the mold and
lead the pack, says Sonya Dufner, principal and director of
workplace strategy at Gensler, a global architectural planning
and consulting firm.

Last year Gensler randomly surveyed 2,035 knowledge workers for a
study on the relationship between workplace design and business
performance. "When we looked at just the tech companies, we found
that people reported they were more satisfied with their work
environment than in other business sectors, and when we asked
why, we found that 'choice' was the key differentiator," Dufner
says, noting that techies are more likely to have a say in when
and where they work (41 percent, vs. an average of 32 percent in
other sectors). In general, she says, employees who are able to
make such choices are more likely to report high levels of
workplace satisfaction.

It's a trend born of Silicon
Valley and creeping eastward. In New York City, it's often
combined with the sensibilities of Brooklyn's DIY maker movement,
which has flourished in incubators such as the Brooklyn Navy
Yard's New Lab and Industry City.

But it's also apparent in places like the midtown Manhattan
office for internet music-streaming company Pandora, designed
by Andrew Bartle's abastudio.

"Our design strategy played the new against the old," Bartle
says. "The kids that work in those places all live in Brooklyn,
and it works with their lifestyle and what they wanted to be a
part of. Their separation between work and life is probably less
so than in our time."

Pandora's office interweaves lifestyle amenities such as
Ping-Pong, stocked open pantries and a yoga room with work areas
that reflect the company's dual needs for interaction and
privacy. Abastudio designed a series of chat rooms in the form of
phone booths, banquette and benched seating, huddle areas and
conference rooms, and a grand staircase between the two floors
that doubles as seating for "all-hands" meetings. In this way,
Bartle says, the plan accommodates up to 150 employees per floor,
more than the typical capacity for similarly sized floor plates.

The elastic design allows the company to expand and contract as
needed. When Pandora has a full house for events such as music
performances or town hall meetings, employees utilize an
amphitheater or other large assembly spots in the office.

"This is a body of workers that sees themselves as a whole social
unit, and that's kind of a different thing," says Barry Fries, a
construction executive and CEO of B.R. Fries, who worked with
Bartle on the Pandora office. "Normally, companies would go on a
retreat to see themselves as a whole, but I think [here] there's
a greater level of awareness of belonging to something--more like
the model of a college or loyalty club."

Adds Bartle: "It was fabulous fun for us, because we saw a
culture and helped them develop forms so they could be
productive. It was very daunting in some ways, but … you can feel
the love in the space."

More than 75 percent of U.S. offices have open plans, say
researchers from Kahler Slater, an experience-design firm based
in Milwaukee. Once the domain of creative services, the studio
model has trickled into professional services such as real-estate
agencies and financial firms. Last year real-estate brokerage
firm CBRE adopted a "free address" open plan in its 200-person
Los Angeles office, doing away with assigned desks in favor of
work "neighborhoods" with couches, "hot" desks (those that are
not assigned to a specific employee but can be reserved for
mobile workers or whoever may need it) and even treadmill desks.

Other white-collar businesses are following suit, mimicking the
strategies of technology firms in order to attract and retain
young employees. Financial giant Credit Suisse has started
converting its European offices to "smart working," offering a
series of touchdown focus and collaboration spaces, work areas
styled after cafes--even greenhouses.

"Financial firms are losing employees and not able to attract
MBAs who are going from school to technology companies, and
that's making these pretty traditional organizations rethink the
future," Dufner says. "They're looking at what some of those
technology firms are doing and asking how they create culture
within their workplace and what are those things that attract
people. Financial firms are starting to talk about themselves as
technology firms … their business is really changing, so their
space needs to reflect those changes."

In Chicago, Lynch re-created office space for two financial
companies: online lender Enova and private equity firm Sterling
Partners. For Enova, a technology company and prominent employer
for emerging talent, the project was an upgrade within a culture
predisposed to open design. "They wanted an exchange of ideas
between people that wasn't happening before because of the way
they were set up," Lynch says.

On the other hand, the change for Sterling Partners was a "huge
risk." The 60-plus-person firm radically changed its model,
moving from the suburbs to the city. New furnishings included
stand-up desks and lounge chairs with 360-degree views of the
city, to be enjoyed by all. The reception area was reimagined to
facilitate interaction and mobility among support employees, who
could act more like concierges than secretaries.

"When people came into the space, they didn't want to seem
hierarchical. They wanted to seem welcoming and that [everyone]
was part of the experience," Lynch says of Sterling Partners.
"They created an increased opportunity for collaboration, and
they really treat the space as an opportunity for mentorship."

Mentorship is also the idea behind Startup Box: South Bronx, an
incubator case study that aims to combine co-working space for
startup companies and individuals with after-school programming
for high-school students. Conceived by Ennead Lab in partnership
with a community-based economic development engine (but not yet
executed), the 5,000-square-foot warehouse would provide 24
flexible workstations, a fabrication lab for prototyping and
testing and space for classes or meetings.

Ennead Lab director Andrew Burdick says the program was the
result of a cross-pollination of ideas between two like-minded
groups: startups and students.

"Essentially, they're asking the same questions and need the same
types of spaces," he says. "It starts to create an interesting
overlap where the incubator businesses start to be mentors to the
students, and the students become mentors to the startups because
of the technological levels of abilities that youth bring to the
table."

Burdick says the Ennead team studied co-working organizations
like The Hatchery, General Assembly and WeWork, and consulted
with educators in the maker movement.

"They get this era we're living in, and they have become a boon
to these startups as a hotbox for ideas," Burdick says, adding
that Ennead's designers believed "the users might do well if we
created a symbiotic relationship in one space where the two
populations could mix and, in fact, be the better for it."

Architect Andrew Franz is operating under a similar concept for a
space he's designing for a financial company in New York. Moving
for the first time in 40 years, the 70-person firm opted for an
open plan that it hopes will one day accommodate like-minded
businesses.

"The aspect they're trying to create is to foster and nurture
other companies and individuals, so if they believe in another
company, they can offer them desk or work space," Franz notes.
"It's the sharing of ideas as they're being developed … trying to
act like an incubator so they can see what the next ideas are.

"I think there's a lot more overlap and more sharing going on
with businesses developing together like a village economy, but
in a more white-collar urban way," he adds. "They've been forced
to concentrate on what kind of changes they really want, as well
as what kind of continuity they want to preserve."

As financial firms nudge toward the great undivide, some business
sectors, such as law firms, are still firmly entrenched in the
traditional office layout, according to Doug Zucker, a principal
at Gensler's San Francisco office. "It's really a profession
that's bound by tradition and precedent, so people are loath to
be the first to do something new," he explains.

However, since the recession, law firms have restructured their
fees and workloads, looking more keenly at the competition. This
shift, Zucker says, will translate into real estate and how it's
used. Gensler's research predicts similar changes for legal
offices as those already happening in other sectors--smaller,
flexible, more collaborative--but Zucker cautions against too
many changes too quickly.

"We've swung the pendulum toward the collaborative work
environment so far that we haven't paid attention to the balance
between focus and collaboration," he says, noting that open
offices could be problematic for lawyers, who spend an average of
half their time--more than any other industry Gensler
surveyed--on work that requires sharp focus.

Indeed, Gensler's survey of knowledge workers showed a 6 percent
drop in workplace performance in open offices when collaboration
and focus were weighed, with 53 percent of respondents saying
they were disturbed or distracted by co-workers. It's an issue
even at the most forward-looking tech companies. Bartle says
acoustics played a large role in Pandora's design, and careful
attention was paid to balancing audio and visual privacy. "It
tries to look casual and is, in fact, very casual, but the
efforts that go into it are extremely detailed," he notes.

Zucker says that when workplace changes do occur in the legal
sector, offices may end up resembling consulting firms, with Gen
Xers and Millennials driving the changes toward collaboration and
"soft" amenities like flex space and work that is creative and
mission-driven over entitlement amenities like the corner office.

Sustainability has taken on a new meaning for the office,
shifting from a focus on the environment to one on the whole
being. Reclaimed materials, toxin-free substances and energy
efficiencies are "nearly automatic now," says Chicago architect
Lynch, while the new sustainability is human-focused, paying
attention to body and soul, thanks to growing evidence that a
happy employee is a loyal and productive employee. To that end,
pantries are stocked with healthful food, assembly spaces double
as yoga rooms, and in-office kitchen events enable employees to
prep food and dine together.

Furniture is more active, too. Gensler's Dufner says orders for
sit/stand desks are on the rise, in recognition of the notion
that "sitting is the new smoking." Many offices are adding
treadmill desks to the mix. Also trending: the addition of
outdoor spaces as areas of respite.

"In suburban locations or other parts of the world, you see more
offices located near walking trails, and teams are using this
during the day to refresh and get out and walk and talk," Dufner
says. Even in space-challenged Manhattan, advertising agency
Wieden+Kennedy commissioned an outdoor terrace as part of its
recent redesign.

In Brooklyn, Eric Benaim, founder of Modern Spaces, a boutique
real-estate firm with five offices and 70 employees, created a
hybrid office with an artisanal coffee shop opening out to the
street. His agents conduct business at either a desk or over
communal tables in the shop. Benaim says the connection feeds the
soul and helps business.

"It helps them more creatively, they're not distanced from the
world, and they're happier when they come to work," he says.
"When they're happy, they'll relay that to their clients. When
our agents are happy, our clients are happy."